How Much Storage Does 8K Video Use On Galaxy S21?

One of the big questions with the Galaxy S21, since Samsung got rid of the micro SD card slot, is how much storage 8K video will use.

The Galaxy S21 comes with a stock storage of 128GB. There are options to upgrade to 256GB for $50 more, or 512GB on the Galaxy S21 Ultra for $180 more (that also bumps the RAM from 12GB to 16GB). Which Samsung claims is plenty of storage for shooting and recording 8K videos. But is it really?

Well we tested it to find out for ourselves.

How Much Storage Does 8K Video Use On Galaxy S21?

So how much storage does 8K video use on the Galaxy S21 series? It’s between 550MB and 600MB, depending on what you are recording.

That’s about the same amount of storage as the Galaxy S20 series, which shouldn’t come as a surprise at all. Considering 8K is still 8K. Remember that the Galaxy S21 will record at 8K 24 fps. Obviously once 8K recording is available at 30 fps and 60 fps, that amount will get larger. And hopefully by then, our smartphones will have more storage.

Your Galaxy S21 won’t record in 8K24 by default. It’ll default to 4K60, which is a good idea. It looks better, and uses up less storage, which is a good thing.

Is there a limit on how long the Galaxy S21 can record 8K? There isn’t actually a limit, like on the Galaxy S20 which would stop at five minutes. You can keep recording longer than five minutes. But, at about four minutes and 30 seconds, it’ll tell you to limit your recordings to under five minutes to prevent overheating.

Yes, the Galaxy S21 does get hot when recording in 8K for a long period of time. After recording for around five minutes, the Galaxy S21 Ultra was a little warm, but not super hot. Nor did it feel like it was overheating. The limits aren’t so much with the phone, but more with the 8K footage.

So there you have it, 8K footage does take up a big amount of storage, if you shoot a lot of 8K footage. Otherwise, 128GB should be enough.